


Home Is The Way Back

by imogenbynight



Series: Suptober 2020 [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Post 14.02, Suptober20, Suptober2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26768914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imogenbynight/pseuds/imogenbynight
Summary: In the immediate aftermath of Michael's departure, Dean struggles to find his equilibrium.[A very delayed 14.02 coda, written as part of the Suptober challenge!]
Series: Suptober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951303
Comments: 7
Kudos: 65





	Home Is The Way Back

**Author's Note:**

> I decided at the very last minute to participate in [winchester_reload's Suptober challenge](https://winchester-reload.tumblr.com/post/630515631381479424/its-that-time-of-the-year-again-where-we-all-roll)
> 
> This is my (rather short) fill for the October 1st prompt: _On The Road Again_
> 
> Hopefully this will get me back into the swing of writing fic. Hope you all enjoy :)

Michael is coursing through his veins, and all Dean can think is that it doesn’t feel like being chained to a comet. It feels like diving head-first into a black hole. Raw power and endless nothing; fire and ice and silence and the high-pitched, brain-piercing scream of ceaseless movement. 

Falling, flying—whatever he’s doing—his limbs are not his own. 

He’s stretched beyond the limits of his body. Pulled in every direction, shaped into something else, distorted and deformed so wholly that when Michael finally leaves, abruptly, without a word, Dean thinks that he’s going to die.

But he reaches his hand out, and it moves with his will. 

The wood of the support beam it brushes against is old and half rotten, and it flakes under his palm. Splinters dig in as he presses more firmly against it, unable to hold himself upright under the phantom weight of Michael’s wings on his back, still heavy, even though he’s gone. The hat—some ridiculous thing that makes him look like an overgrown Oliver Twist—is too hot on his head, too itchy and tight, and he yanks it free, needing to feel the cool night air and to just—

To make a decision. A choice of his own, for the first time in—

“Sammy,” He feels his voice, the way it rumbles through his body. How his lips move, the skin of his cheeks and the bones of his jaw shifting. It all feels strange. Like an echo of something out of reach. “It’s me.”

Ahead of him, he can see the outline of his brother. His mother. His surrogate father. The after-image of their souls hasn’t faded—when he saw them with Michael’s senses, only for a moment, they were all so bright it was blinding. He wonders how long it will be before his vision clears.

“Dean?”

It’s strange. He’s been hearing prayers this whole time—crossed wires or tangled nerve endings making him privy to everything Michael picked up on angel radio—but this, someone else’s voice in physical space, a sound formed through vibrations in the air, is different. Rounder. More solid.

He hadn’t noticed how quiet things were until the sounds came back.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it’s me.”

Sam’s hands hold him up; Mary’s are at his cheek, his shoulder, checking him over as though there might be some physical evidence of what he’s been through. Bobby stands back, gripping his faded ball cap in one hand and running the other through his short hair.

Slowly, Dean sinks to the ground and tries to calm his racing pulse. There’s too much rushing back at once—hunger, pain, sound, fear, smell, taste, physical touch. He closes his eyes for a long moment. Breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, waits for calm. He waits, and waits, but it doesn’t feel as though it’s coming.

Home, he thinks, is the solution. Home will bring him back, set his mind at ease. 

Once, home was the driver’s seat of the Impala; the smooth rumble of the asphalt under her tires as she carried them toward the bunker. It still is, in a way, but it’s also his way back. Back to Cas and Jack; back to his bedroom, his records, the smell of coffee wafting from the kitchen, the quiet sound of life going on in the rooms around him.

“Let’s go home,” Dean says, his voice still thick from lack of use. “Where’s my baby?”

Sam raises his brow. 

“You want to drive?”

He does. He doesn’t. He knows the car will feel too slow, now. Everything seems too slow. With Michael, time stretched out and compressed, and—

“It’ll do me good. Getting back on the road again.”

Sam and Mary make the same face—brows tense, mouths pinched—and it’s the first time he’s ever seen a similarity between them. Sam always had more of John in him.

Despite their obvious trepidation, Sam holds out the keys, and Dean takes them. 

They’re cool in his palm, and when he presses his fingers closed around them, the rough edge of the keychain digs into his skin, just a little. Just enough that he knows he’s really there.


End file.
